The errant and undisciplined ruminations of a Conservative public interest attorney, GOP activist, and father of two sons. Nothing herein should be confused with tolerance of folly, RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), sufferance of fools gladly, or endorsement of perversion.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Andrew Hurst: Con Artist

Oh, it's so much fun to watch the sanctimony of the far Left in high dudgeon.

According to the paid mouthpiec... er, boys over at Raising Dough ... er, "Raising Kaine," Democrat Andrew Hurst said at last night's debate that, as a Congressman, he wouldn’t accept millions of dollars from PACS. In fact, according to RK, Andy has refused to take any money from PACS during this election. The poster also opined that his unwillingness to accept money from lobbyists is the simple reason of why he would be productive while serving in Congress. "Hurst would be held accountable to the people instead of the lobbyists."

Oh really?

It's kinda funny that he should mention that, because the FEC would probably beg to differ. It lists $450 in PAC money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, hardly known as an apologist for Conservatives and/or Republicans. I suppose that's not "millions of dollars from PACs," so one might not be able to call Hurst a bald-faced liar, but he has accepted PAC money.

And a further look at his top contributors, at least as of his last report, indicates which "people" to whom he would be held accountable. And it would only take a couple of guesses from the informed political observer to guess which ones. Labor unions? George Soros? Trial lawyers? Survey says: trial lawyers!

Once again, if one goes to Open Secrets, one easily finds a chart showing the source of Hurst's funds. The chart is explained like this:

This chart lists the top donors to each candidate so far in the current election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

And what does Andy Hurst's chart show? His top five donors are law and lobbying related. ReedSmith LLP, a Washington law firm for whom Hurst works, donate $24,500; Jack H. Olender & Associates, $2,500; the Law Office of C. Bardis LLC, $2000; the Law Offices of Robet Stahl, $2000, and Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, $1,300. Further review shows that seven of his top ten sources of donations were law-related. Hurst's single biggest donor group, as of his last report? You guessed it! Lawyers and lobbyists. The FEC reports show a similar bent. You can't swing a dead cat around Hurst's contributors without hitting a lawyer.

Self-righteousness is a singularly repugnant characteristic. Particularly when one has nothing to be righteous about. The post at Raising Dough ... er, "Raising Kaine," simply demonstrates how far in the bag they are for anyone on the far Left.

UPDATE: Gee, better divert attention from Hurst's hypocrisy. At the risk if unduly increasing his traffic (more than twice as many people visit here per day), you might want to go to Hurst's official campaign blog to learn how Democrats respond when their hypocrisy is exposed: ignore it, and go on the attack.

Thanks for reading, Nate, but you might want to try following the link. The first CRP link shows a $450 PAC donation. Now, I couldn't find the specific donation, but I don't pretend to be an Internet or campaign finance expert (other than to note that any finance regulations other than those requiring disclosure and prohibiting coercion violate the First Amendment). However, CRP lists $450 in PAC donations. Your dispute is with CRP.

There is no PAC money. I saw that on CRP also and I reported the error. The error was corrected by the Washington Post here by Sept 8th, http://projects.washingtonpost.com/elections/keyraces/funding/n00027527/ but seemingly not yet by CRP.Your error emphasizes the importance of primary research. When you rely on the summary of a report of a filing, instead of the filing itself, errors get compounded. You can see what happened if you go to the original record. It looks like the FEC mischaracterized this $450 from the Democratic Party as a PAC contribution. See here: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/can_give/2005_H6VA11033

By the way, Davis is a lawer and a lobbyist also, and has taken more money from lobbbyists than 428 of the 435 Congressmen, including felon Jack Abramoff, and uber-lobbyists/K Street Project and many others named here: http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=1376

The difference is Tom Davis by 400%. Of course, Davis has legislation to sell to oil companies, big pharma, and banks, who also donated large amounts independent of their lobbyists and lawyers. Didn't I say already that Davis takes so much lobby money he's ranked #7 in the House in Abramoff and DeLay style "Pay to Play" politics by Public Citizen?

You said more than half of that money ($24k+) comes from fellow lawyers at Andy's firm. You'll find that most of them are young family people like Andy and are still paying for loans while they start a family and pay huge Northern Virginia housing prices. What this means to me is an awful lot of Andy's co-workers like him enough, and have faith in his honesty, dedication, and his courage of his convictions, to put their money where their mouth is.

Let's go to PACs, shall we?Hurst, now we know, is $0.Davis is $3.25 million.

And should I even mention that the author of this post is a union-busting lawyer?

I'm still eagerly awaiting your correction and apology on the PAC error!

Apparently, you guys don't know a Hypocrisy Check when you see one. Andy Hurst complains about lobbyists and PACs, but is more than happy to take their cash when it can be disguised in contributions from Washington lawyers, many of whom are lobbyists, and resents it mightily that Tom Davis is more successful at it (and doesn't complain about it when others do it) than he is. And wow! A Ralph Nader outfit attacks a Republican? Who woulda thunk it? I would say that OpenSecrets.org is a more reliable and non-partisan/ideological source. At least that money is given voluntarily; if Andy Hurst eschews money and "volunteers" paid for by labor unions, then I'll be impressed.

And "union-busting lawyer," achamblee?!?!? Whine; whine; whine! It's only "union-busing" if you're honest enough to admit that labor unions can't survive without special privileges (monopoly bargaining; forced-unionism) granted by the government. It's quite revealing that those of you on the far Left can't survive unless your able to enlist the government into coercion over the individual. Very respectable, that.

So, now you know the "PAC" contributor is the Democratic party and you still won't admit you botched it by being too lazy to confirm the facts, eh? Trying to change the subject with your defensive retort about Labor? You have to act like a troll on your own site, changing your own subject of PAC and lawyer donations. You got busted and you're counting on your readers to be too stupid to see it. As to whether the donors give "voluntarily," if you look up Networx and Postal Reform, you'll see that Davis has dangled that legislation for years, sometimes more than 10 years, demanding donations from the Post Office and telecom industries just so he'll do the job he already gets paid to do -- put it on the agenda that he controls, and get the legislation through his committee.

You said "if Andy Hurst eschews money and "volunteers" paid for by labor unions, then I'll be impressed." Cough up the impressions like the irritating hairball it must be for you! Andy accepts money and other items of value (address lists, volunteer time) only from individuals, not from groups except the Dem Party. Tom Davis's list of PAC contributors is 173 pages long, not counting the lawyers' lobbyists, and PAC members who give individually as well. You can see here.(Psst! This is the site for people who are interested in original research.)

Oh, and attacking the messenger (Public Citizen) is so Nixonian! That's for people who can't find anything untruthful in the message. Didn't they teach you logic in law school? Or weren't you interested enough in logic to take it as an elective?

Andrea (are you also "achamblee"?), you decided to play the name-calling game, as well as the "attacking the messenger" game. Remember "a union-busting lawyer"? "Too lazy"? "A troll?" Spare me your childish and unjustified sanctimony. Andy Hurst was caught quibbling. Unfortunately for him, running the kind of hate campaign against Tom Davis that those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome have run against the President is likely to be a losing proposition.

YOU said Hurst's money was somehow tainted because it came from his co-workers who were - SHOCK - lawyers. Remember? Remember, "can't swing a dead cat without hitting a lawyer...?" Hmmm. Call your union. You're gonna need health insurance for that Alzheimer's setting in.

You're also still ignoring that there's no Hurst PAC money. Well, we can blame it on that Alzeimer's, too. You forgot your own train of thought on here again!

You also say that the law firms that give to Hurst have lobbying groups, but you don't prove it. You certainly haven't named any with really big practices that are profiting in millions from the Iraq and Katrina contracts, like Van Scoyoc and Paul Magliocchetti. Those two firms HAVE given to Davis AND his wife.

Well, I'm not an expert on PACs, lobbyists, and sources of big money like Mr. Young is, but I do know one thing - I am loving life because of the fact that Mr. Young is desperately trying to dig dirt (which he will not find!) on Mr. Hurst. It means that Mr. Davis and his supporters are running scared. As they well should be! Given Mr. Hurst's masterful performance at last Tues night's debate (while Mr. Davis spent the night trying to defend his record with a boring recitation of statistics and bill numbers) it is apparent that Mr. Davis has met his match.

With a record like his, Tom Davis would be smart to tell his attack dogs to lay off the claims of PAC contributions against his opponent. As the master of amassing money from anyone who will throw some his way, that is a topic he shouldn't want to explore.

Andy Hurst is honest and decent, a devoted family man, and a general good guy. He takes no PAC money because he wants to represent the citizens of the 11th District, not Big Money and special interests. I know this is a refreshing switch from "business as usual" in Congress but it happens to be the truth.

"Dig dirt"? Don't flatter yourself, or your candidate, "Lucy's Mom." I saw one errant line, found it improbable, and noted that, according to one non-partisan source, that it was inaccurate at best, and with just a little more digging, little more than quibbling. It took all of about ten minutes to learn the truth. Unlike the far Left, I don't begrudge anyone's voluntary contributions to politics. Where I part company with the far Left is in its hostility to voluntary participation in politics, and in its penchant for granting special privileges to its political allies while trying to stifle the free speech of others.

The "dirt" on Andy Hurst is his association with far Left moonbats and the party of the Great Prevaricator. That should be enough "dirt" for most Virginians to reject his far Left politics.

And Tom Davis doesn't tell me what to do. Never has; never will. That's another thing that those of you on the far Left probably don't understand. And why every one of you is evading the issue of union bosses' support for Andy Hurst.

About Me

James Young is an attorney (licensed in D.C. and Pennsylvania only) with a public interest legal aid organization, is a nationally-recognized expert in labor and constitutional law in the context of individual rights, and has argued two cases before the United States Supreme Court. He has been married to his wife, Brenda, for 22 years, and they have two sons, Jimmy (16) and Patrick (11). In his professional capacity, he travels frequently, with cases in Philadelphia, Alaska, Hawaii, and California. His clients are quite diverse, and include farmworkers in California, Congressmen in Washington (challenging an Executive Order issued by Bill Clinton), pro football players with the Washington Redskins, and Barry Williams (big brother Greg on the Brady Bunch). From 1998 until 2005, he was a weekly political columnist for the Potomac News in Woodbridge, Virginia. He is active in Virginia Republican politics, and is a member of the Federalist Society.